


An Old Appetite for Glory

by jiffyfetch



Category: The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:58:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1858878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiffyfetch/pseuds/jiffyfetch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Achilles is the top-of-his-class, full ride football scholarship perfect son. Patroclus is the dreamy artist his mother always warned him about.</p><p>NOTE: "Please Be Mine" is now called "An Old Appetite for Glory"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two of Us

**Author's Note:**

> this all started as a stupid post on my blog (http://queerpatrocluss.tumblr.com/post/89511339259/achilles-patroclus-modern-au-achilles-is-the#notes) and spiraled out of control.
> 
> The football I'm talking about is American football. Please note that I know pretty much nothing about this sport, so be kind.
> 
> Trigger warnings: brief descriptions of a panic attack

It's the sprinklers that wake me up. This isn't the first time I've woken up naked on the football field and I'm sure it won't be the last. I stand, untangling my limbs from Achilles's and gently kicking him awake. The last thing we need is to be caught by the school gardener. Again.

I run a hand through my hair and find it caked with semen. "Wake up asshole," I bark, kicking Achilles a little harder, "you got jizz in my hair."

He laughs, bleary-eyed and clearly exhausted, leaning his head against my legs.

"C'mon," I mutter, "Thetis will be pissed."

"Shit," he replies, scrambling to his feet and taking off at a sprint, still naked. I gather his clothing along with my own and follow at a slower pace. I catch myself grinning stupidly as I stare at his strawberry blond curls, shining in the rising sun.  
  


_********_

"Was she mad?"

Achilles glances up from his locker, smirking at me. "She never knew I was gone."

He lived with his mother most days, coming to Peleus's mostly to visit me. We'd known each other since we were 12, Peleus taking me in after my own father split, leaving me with twenty dollars and a happy meal. Thetis had won big in the divorce, making a good case for Peleus's abuse of her. Peleus was a kind man, but easily manipulated and cruel to her. She deserved her time with Achilles, as much as I despised her for it.

"How did you manage that?" I ask, pretending to be surprised that he had gotten away with it. Thetis was strict and all-knowing, but Achilles was fast and cunning. She kept him under lock and key, but he knew how to use a lock pick. Peleus on the other hand did not seem to care much where I went or at what time, so long as I was present and clean for three meals a day.

"I just left my window open," he laughs, giving me a quick kiss before heading off to football practice. "It was child's play." Never mind the fact that his window is on the second floor.

"Wait," I call. "I'll walk with you."

"What's up?" he asks, furrowing his brow. First period biology is my favorite class, and I usually part ways with him here so I'm not late.

"I'm just worried," I admit.

"About the game?" he asks. I love the way he asks it, like he doesn't think my concern is stupid.

"Yeah," I reply. "It's just, the last time you guys played Troy you wound up in the hospital. I'm worried about you going neck to neck with Hector again."

"Don't worry. I'll tell you a secret," he whispers as we duck into the locker room. "Hector can't touch me. I'm invincible." He tugs on his helmet and runs out the door to the field we had woken up on just hours ago, already wearing his uniform. The bell rings.

I sink down onto one of the old wooden benches. The locker room  smells like feet and sweat, but I linger. I stare at my reflection, a gawky mocha-skinned boy with unruly black curls, courtesy of my unknown mother. I look like a hipster, with my thrift store flannel shirt, hand-me-down skinny jeans from Achilles, and a worn out leather jacket I found at Goodwill for twelve dollars. I shopped at thrift stores because I was poor, scraping up change for my own wardrobe. Peleus did not neglect me, but I certainly wasn't spoiled. 

I stay there for the rest of the period, lost in thought. I worry about Achilles, my idiot boyfriend who's relying on a full-ride football/academic scholarship to get him through college. His parents were the richest in our town, but that wasn't really saying much. I was counting on a scholarship too, both of us wanting to get out of this shithole town and on to bigger, better things. I was salutatorian of our class, second only to Achilles.

Smart as we both are, our chances of success are slim and I know it. I'm a non-white queer boy living in a country whose economy is in shambles. His are better; his skin is milky white and his personality sparkles. I loved him instantly, as I suspect most people do. And yet, football is a dangerous sport. Head injuries are common and one good blow could end his career forever. Many of the Trojan players (our rival high school, the one in the town of McMansions next door) have it out for him, and would happily end his future within seconds.

The bell marking the end of the period startles me, as football players come pouring back into the locker room. I start to lose control of my thoughts, and the room spins around me.

"Patroclus?" Achilles's voice rings out loud and clear, and his arms are soon around me. "What's wrong?"

I push away from him and move to the stalls, gasping for air. I can't breathe and the walls are closing in on me. I feel like I did the one time I allowed Achilles to wrestle with me, the breath knocked out of my chest as he sat on top of me, smirking and laughing.

The memory fades as his face is pressed to mine,  clear and present. "Please, Patroclus, tell me what's wrong."

"I-I can't" I gasp out, and that's good enough for him. He pulls me into his arms as my tears stain his shirt and I shake and shake and shake.

When I finally stop crying and gasping for breath, he helps me to my feet.

"Was that a panic attack?"

"I think so," I say, still a little wobbly. "I used to have them when I was a kid. I was thinking about how fucked we are, how we're never gonna get out of this town, how we're never gonna have real lives, how some Trojan might give you brain damage on Friday-"

"Hey," he says, cutting me off before I can go any farther. "Hey, hey, hey. None of that is gonna happen. You know why? Because I've got you, and you've got me. We're all we need, right? The rest of that, that's just secondary. We've lived rough lives forever. We can manage. Remember what I told you this morning?"

"That you're invincible?"

"Right. That's how I feel when I'm with you. Like nothing could possibly go wrong. You're all I need Patroclus. Now come on, let's go."

"Where?" I ask, hoping he doesn't mean class.

"McDonalds. You need a milkshake, bad."

 


	2. i used to take the bus to go anywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patroclus gets worse. Briseis is concerned. Achilles has a fight with his coach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayy so every chapter title is a song lyric because im uncreative  
> points to you if you know the song (last one was the beatles's two of us)

I wake up to the sound of a sprinkler hitting my window.  _At least it isn't hitting my face_ I think. I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, playing with the light gold ring on my finger that Achilles gave me last year. It was a plain band, simple and beautiful, the same color as his curls.

A loud knocking startles me and I fall out of bed onto the floor. A face appears in my window, lit by the moon. I recognize Briseis, grinning at me from my second-story window. I move to let her in.

"How did you get up here?"

"There's a ladder in your garage, nitwit," she replies. "Achilles taught me how to sneak in and out of second floor windows years ago."

"Of course he did," I grumble, plopping back down on my bed. "Don't come crying to me when you both break your necks."

She climbs in next to me and rests her head on my chest, tracing gentle patterns over my naked torso. "Are you okay Patroclus?" She asks me, words dripping with genuine concern.

"I don't know."

We lie there in silence for a few minutes before she stands and grabs her bag off of the roof, where it was sitting under the window.

"Here," she hands me a bottle. 

"What is this?" I ask, squinting to read the label in the dark: Paxil, 20 mg.

"It's an antidepressant and anxiety medication. I have a higher dosage now, but I had a lot of these left."

"Briseis," I start, "look I know you're just trying to help-"

"Hey," she says, cutting me off "you're under no obligation to take them. I know self-medication can be dangerous. You should talk to Peleus first, see if he'll take you to a doctor. But if he doesn't I just want you to have enough options, okay?"

"Okay," I sigh. "Thank you."

She crawls back into bed with me, taking my hand. "Just tell me next time, okay? I don't want to have to hear it from someone else."

"Does everyone know?"

"Just me and Achilles."

"Good. I trust you."

"I trust you too, hun," she replies, and we drift off to sleep together.

*******

When I wake up again, there's a third body in bed with us, his arms wrapped around me.

"Hi Achilles," I mutter drowsily. "Did you climb through the window too? You know there's a door here."

"And I use it often," he replies, ruffling my hair. "You okay?"

"For now," I reply, pushing him gently out of bed. "We've got to get ready for school. I already missed all of yesterday."

"No wake-up sex?" Achilles pouts.

"Please don't," groans Briseis, climbing out of bed and throwing one of my plaid shirts on over her jeans from yesterday.

"Ooooh throw me one," Achilles shouts, reaching up to catch the shirt easily. It look absurd on him, gathering over his muscles and objecting to his bulk. He simply grins at himself in the mirror, loving the look of my clothing on him.

We all stroll into school an hour later, barely on time and all wearing my clothes.

*******

I'm sitting on the bleachers, smoking and watching Achilles practice. I've only smoked a couple of times in my life, but I'm unusually exhausted by my classes and feel like I might throw up. The burning in my lungs is calming somehow.

The football team all have first period for practice, trading it for a study hall later in the day. They're all in a special gym class which is last period, running straight into their three hours of practice after school. Phthia's football team is about all we have going for us, and our players get star treatment. Most of them have let it go to their heads, but not Achilles. His ego was big enough already.

I skipped my last period calculus class to sit out here in the crisp fall air and watch my boyfriend do what he does best. He loves football, cherishing the solid ground slipping away from his feet as everything else falls away, a ball cradled in his arms. 

Briseis loves it too. She's less of a natural, but tries a million times harder than everyone else on the team. She fought hard to get onto the team, filing a lawsuit against the school and everything. She isn't one to give up easily.

The coach calls everyone together, and I watch as my two favorite people huddle up around him. 

"Okay," Agamemnon calls, his voice carrying across the field to where I'm perched. "The game against Troy is this Friday, and we need to put our best foot forward. They beat us for the cup last year and that ain't happenin' again. Briseis, Johnson, you're both benched."

"WHAT?" yells Achilles, jerking up from the pile of players.

"Look, we need our best players-"

"And Briseis is our second best player!" he explodes, shaking with anger.

"Oh, and who's our best?" Agamemnon replies "you?"

"Actually, yes, I am," he replies, tugging his helmet off and throwing it on the ground. "But it doesn't matter because you won't have either of us playing on your team. We don't need your bullshit thinly disguised misogyny and we DON'T need your sorry football team either."

He stalks away, Briseis trailing behind him.

"Get out of here Achilles," Agamemnon screams to his back. "We never needed you to win. Your ego has always taken up the entire field anyways!"

Achilles stalks up the bleachers, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. "Come on, Patroclus, we're leaving."

We climb into his shitty beat up pickup truck, the three of us cramming into the front seat. As we squeal out of the parking lot, I realize that football was Achilles's ticket out of here, a ticket his temper may have just blown. Panic ties a knot in my stomach.

"This is bad," I mutter, wrapping my hand in Briseis's. "This is very bad."


	3. i heard there was a secret chord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the group chats

"I'm just saying," Chryseis declares, leaning back against Briseis on the damp grass, "they were totally fucking."

"No way," Achilles replies, chaking his head vehemently. "The jock and the nerd? That never  _actually_  happens."

The three of us start laughing, and Briseis looks pointedly at my head in his lap.

"Okay, fair enough," Achilles sighs, leaning down to peck me on the forehead. He's been even more gentle than usual with me lately, treating me like broken glass since my panic attack. Briseis and Chryseis had too, but they at least tried to be subtle about it. Achilles would just stare at me and then blurt about being worried.

My phone buzzes and I glance over to see a text from Helen. We haven't spoken much since she moved a couple towns over to Troy, but she always manages to text me at just the right moment.

I open the text:

_From: Helen 10:53 AM_

**Hey babe!!! Haven't spoken to you in a while :(((( Will I see you at the big game tonight?? Gooooooooo Troy lol ;) ;)**

 

"Hey, Achilles, are you really not playing the game?" I ask.

"No fuckin' way. After the way Agamemnon treated Briseis?? Not a chance."

"Thanks," mutters Briseis, quietly looking down at Chryseis's hair. Chryseis smiles back at her, leaning up for a kiss.

Dimly, I hear the bell ring from inside the school. We have the rest of the day off, allowing the football team time for extra practice and the rest of us time to get hammered before the game, which is at 3:45. We all managed to get the same shitty Spanish teacher, and take fourth period off as a collective smoke break.

"Let's get out of here before the rest of the team gets here," Achilles groans, pulling me to my feet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this is so so so so short!! i'll write more soon i promise
> 
> thanks for all of the support for this fic on my blog and on here!! xoxo


	4. After the Last Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some reflections on football from Achilles, courtesy of Edward Hirsch

"Fuck!" Achilles gasps, reeling from fifty second shot of tequila.

"Dude," I mutter, sniffing the nasty liquor and handing it back to him, "why does your mom only have tequila? I would've pegged her for a white wine kind of woman."

"She says that wine reminds her of my dad. Tequila is the only liquor he wouldn't touch."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Hey," I say, nudging his shoulder with mine. "Are you sure you wanna go tonight? We can skip the game, Helen will forgive us."

"Nah," he replies, "I wanna go. I can't wait to see how badly Agamemnon fucks up without me."

"Why do you care?"

"This is all I have going for me. It was my ticket out of this shit town. I need the glory, Pat. It's the only thing I have."

"Why football?"

He smiles sadly at me and stands, wobbly. He disappears for a few seconds and returns with a worn book of poems. He flips open to a dogeared page and reads slowly, his voice crackly and rough over the well-known words.

 

_"Someone said, I remember the first hard crack_

_Of shoulderpads on the sidelines before a game,_

_And the bruises that blossom on your arms afterward._

_Someone else remembered the faint, medicinal smell_

_Seeping through the locker-room on Saturday mornings,_

_ Getting your ankles taped while a halfback _

__

_frets in the whirlpool about his hamstrings_

_Steam on three mirrors, then nervous hiss_

_ Of the first hot shower of the morning. _

__

_We talked about the tension mounting all day_

_Until it became the sound of spikes clattering_

_ And hammering a forearm against the lockers _

__

_While an assistant coach diagrammed a punt_

_Return for the umteenth time on his clipboard_

_ For two cornerbacks looking on it boredom... _

__

_Eventually, it always came down to a few words_

_From the head coach-- quiet, focused, intense--_

_ While a huge pit opened up in your stomach _

__

_And the steady buzz of a crowd in the distance_

_Turned into a minor roaring in your skull_

_ As the team exploded onto the field. _

__

_The jitters never disappeared until the opening_

_Kickoff, the first contact, until a body_

_ hurtled down the field in a fury _

__

_And threw itself against your body_

_While everything else in the world faded_

_ Before the crunching action of a play, unfolding... _

__

_I remember how, as we talked, the flat midwestern_

_Fields stretched away into nowhere and nothing,_

_ How the dark sky clouded over like a dome _

__

_Covering a chily afternoon in late November_

_On the prairie, the scent of pinecones_

_ And crisp leaves burning in the air. _

__

_The smoky glow of faces around a small fire._

_Someone spoke of road trips and bridge games_

_ In the back of a bus rolling across the plains. _

__

_The wooden fenceposts ticking off miles_

_And miles of empty cornfields and shortgrasses_

_ Windmills treading their arms, as if underwater _

__

_The first orange lights rising on the horizon--_

_Jesus, someone said, I never thought it would end_

_ Like this, without pads, without hitting anybody. _

__

_But then someone mentioned stepping out of bounce_

_And getting blindsided by a bone-wrenching tackle;_

_ Someone else remembered writhing in a pile _

__

_Of players coming down on his twisted body._

_Torn ligaments. Sprained wrist. A black coin_

_ Blooming under your left eye on Sunday morning. _

__

_After all those years of drills and double practices,_

_Seasons of calisthenics, weightrooms, coaches_

_ Barking orders-- missed blocks, squirming fumbles--; _

__

_After all those summersof trying to perfect_

_A sideline pass and a buttonhook, a fly, a flag,_

_ A deep post, a quick pass over the middle; _

__

_After the broken patterns and failed double-teams,_

_The July nights sprinting up the stadium stairs_

_ And the August days banging against each other's bodies, _

__

_The slow walks home alone in the dusky light--_

_After all those injury-prone autumns, not_

_ One of us could explain why he had done it. _

__

_What use now is the language of traps_

_And draws, of power sweeps and desperate on-side_

_ Kicks, of screen passes, double reverses? _

__

_But still there was the memory of a sharp cut_

_Into the open and the pigskin spiraling_

_ Into your hands from twenty yards away, _

__

_The ecstasy of breaking loose from a tackle_

_And romping for daylight, for the green_

_ Promised land of the empty endzone. _

__

_Someone said, I remeber running onto the field_

_And seeing my girlfriend in the stands at midfield_

_ Everyone around her was chanting and shouting _

__

_And the adrenalin was coursing through my boyd:_

_I felt as if I would explode with happiness._

_ As if I would never falter, or waver, or die... _

__

_Someone else recollected the endless, losing,_

_Thirteen-hour drive home after he had bruised_

_ A collarbone on the last play of the game, _

__

_The whole bus encased in silence, like a glass_

_Jar, like the night itself, clarified. Afterward,_

_ He recalled the wild joy of his frist interception... _

__

_The fire sputtered and smouldered, faded out_

_And our voices trembled in the ghostly woodsmoke_

_ Until it seemed as if we were partly warriors _

__

_And partly boyscouts ringed around the flame,_

_Holding our helmets in our arms and trying_

_ To understand an old appetite for glory. _

__

_Our raging, innocent, violent, American_

_Boyhoods, gone now, vanished forever_

_ Like the victories and the hard losses. _

__

_It was late. A deep silence descended_

_As twilight disintergrated in the night air_

_ And the fire glowered down to embers and ashes, _

__

_To red bits of nothing. But no one moved. Oh._

_We were burning, burning, burning, burning..._

_And then someone began singing in the darkness."_

He leans back and gives me a sleepy smile. 

"My mom used to read Hirsch to me before I went to sleep. And then I started reading them on my own, and I stumbled upon this one and it was just...it was everything I wanted. 'An old appetite for glory.' It was everything I thought high school could be. Glory."

"The poem's about the death of glory," I say, looking at him sadly.

"Everything ends, Pat. This just had to last long enough to get me out. Only that's the thing - it wasn't supposed to end like this."

"Without pads, without hitting anybody."

"Fuck. This all I have, Patroclus. This is it for me. And it's over."

"You have me."

"Yeah," he smiles, sipping more tequila - straight from the bottle. "Yeah, I have you, you giant sap."

 


	5. You Can't Start a Fire Without a Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit hits the fan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I was going to try to stick to the plot of the iliad but in a modern setting. Well, that only sort of happened. 
> 
> Trigger warning for homophobia & suicide.

Helen's waiting for us in the stands, half an hour late and completely shitfaced (Achilles is at least.) She runs over to me and jumps into a hug. I spin her around while Achilles giggles drunkenly.

"How're we doing?" I ask her as we settle onto the cold metal bleachers.

"Troy is winning forty-zero."

"Fuck," I sigh.

"Achilles was their best player," she smiles sadly. "They aren't that good without him. Or Briseis for that matter. Where is she?"

"With Chryseis. They're hiding out and avoiding Troy kicking our asses," snickers Achilles. 

"Achilles," I mutter. "They really need you out there."

"They're getting what they deserve," he replies, watching as Hector makes a flawless pass.

I watch his teammates from the stands, taking in their slumped shoulders and broken faces. A few of the skinnier boys are getting medical attention on the sidelines. I can't stop myself from shuddering.

"Other people are relying on this," I tell him, knowing that college scouts were anticipating a big win tonight and had come out to watch. In our town, scholarships were not something to be thrown away.

"Fuck 'em."

I stand up before I can think and start jogging away. Achilles and Helen shout after me, but it's too late. I'm already gone.

 

******

I'm very familiar with the football field. I've fucked and gotten fucked up on that astroturf - I've skipped class there while smoking with Achilles and I fell in love on the sloping bleachers in the fading moonlight. It is through muscle memory alone that I make the trip to the locker rooms. I know Achilles's locker code. His uniform is exactly where I knew it would be. I pull on his helmet and trudge out to the fields.

Agamemnon sees me emerge from the locker room and nudges a few players. They're older and I don't remember their names. The group of them traipse over, scowling at me.

"What the hell are you doin, fairy?" Agamemnon asks me.

"You need a good player. I'm better than half of the guys you have out there right now."

"Oh? What makes you think that?" he laughs.

"I was varsity freshman year. I'm second only to Achilles and you know that. Maybe Briseis."

"You don't play ball anymore," snarls the taller of the two players with Agamemnon. "There's a fuckin reason for that Patty."

"Patroclus," I correct him. I know an insult when I hear one.

"Get out of here faggot," says the shorter player. "We don't need you."

Achilles is allowed to be gay. He's the best football player our shitty town has ever seen. Briseis gets nothing but hatred for being openly butch, but she's useful to the team. I quit playing halfway through freshman year, days after I came out. I didn't command the same level of respect as Achilles and I had been harassed for much longer. 

"Actually," I reply, trying to keep my hands from shaking, "it looks like you do."

Shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the weather, I turned away. I walked straight away from them, holding both paint-stained middle fingers to the air as I went. 

The taller boy got to me first, but not alone. His friend held me down as he punched and punched and punched, turning my face into pulp. My mouth filled with blood and my ears rang with the sounds of hands against my flesh. 

I faintly made out two blond silhouettes, drunk shouting. I was no longer pinned down.

I rolled over and emptied my stomach onto the fake grass. Then, with the last bits of energy I had left, I pulled myself up and ran.

******

I make it to my car, but I don't remember how I got there. Achilles and Helen are back on the football field, getting my revenge for me.

I feel like death. My mind is made up.

I lock the car doors and open the glove compartment. There's a couple bottles of Advil in here. I dig through piles of McDonalds napkins and old ketchup packets before finding them.

Pills and pills and pills and pills and pills.

I don't have any water. They go down anyway.

The last thing I remember is Achilles pounding on my window, gasping with sobs. His knuckles are bloody and he's sporting a black eye. He's screaming and screaming and Helen is pushing him back, trying to pick the lock on my door.

And everything is burning. Burning and burning.

"It's all okay," I want to tell them. "It's over. We're okay now."

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is so short! I'll be adding more soon, and a plot will actually develop (hopefully.) I hope you enjoyed, and comment with any feedback you have!


End file.
